Shattered and Shivered
by matchboxcars
Summary: having watched it morph shapes as the positions of peoples arms changed as they walked through halls and up stairs. cadet days. please review, ch 3 edited
1. Chapter 1

He looked around, and felt as if he had been struck by lightning. There were so many beings, so much movement, so little peace. With great trepidation, he followed the group of cadets forward, focusing in between them, searching desperately for little triangles and octagons of calm. They walked through a door, which led to a huge lobby, surrounded by staircases, marble floors. It was very cold, Spock was very cold. He felt eyes upon him everywhere; he was different, that he knew, had known all his life. But humans were different from Vulcans: In trying so hard to stop him from feeling alien, they had succeeded as well as those on Vulcan at making him feel far from indigenous. The chill was creeping up his arms.

"This is where you eat meals"

Spock looked up from his cubic calm, having watched it morph shapes as the positions of peoples arms changed as they walked through halls and up stairs. He suddenly felt sick, could feel the ghosts of animals combusting into his mind, exploding out with painful animosity.

"Are you all right"

"Yes"

Would it have been correct to thank him? But yes, he was alright, he would grow accustomed to unseen carcasses of the mess, the damp dankness of his room, the chill, the darkness, the noise, the chaos. He was all right.

"Your concern was logical. I believe a human would say thank you?"

"Some would…the good kind"

"Are you…one of the good kind?

"I don't know"

Spock peered at this man, no, boy in front of him, the awkward stance, the crooked smile.

"I believe you are"

A cow was kicking desperately at the back of his head, a deer was running through his heart, and there were pigs stampeding through his veins and bursting them into spewing fountains of green. The room was spinning. He was shaking. Where was he? Who was this man, no boy, no, no, no. He fell into a pit of navy darkness, illuminated only by a dream of his mother, in a white dress, in a white room, holding a black rose.


	2. Chapter 2

Darwin's theories, he realized, were outdated. The weak often survived longer and prospered more than the ordinary, or extraordinary, human. Perhaps, he thought, as he watched from his lonely corner in the hallway, that Darwin had not contemplated the idea that humans were herd animals, very much needed each other for psychological comfort and health.

The crowd was thinning, it would be safe to walk soon, when no one would bump into him and the roar of voices would no longer assault his ears with such violence as to make him dizzy and nauseous. "Soon" he thought, leaning back into the corner, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second longer to fight the waves of pain reverberating at the front of his head. These humans were the cause of infinite suffering.

Yet, as he gathered himself and began to take the first wavering step forward, he knew that the suffering he was enduring here was very different from that where he had come from. There it was silence, reprimand, hatred for that which he had, and never had, control of. Now it was simply the chill, the smell, the noise, the very chaos of being around so many humans. The similarities were those which he had known all his life, the loneliness still surrounded him quietly in the evenings, when the sun began to sway slowly downwards as the moon, which he was fascinated by, so different, so stern, appeared suddenly, as the characters in a play behind a curtain. He was still alien, different, freakish, but he had been that for a very long time, he had never been anything different. At least the only person he was betraying by being here was his father, not an entire species.

He fell into step with the last of the group entering the classroom, and began to identify emotions. There was impatience, there was sadness, there was anger, and in the corner was the quiet reservoir of calm. He was talking to a girl, from her, he found attraction, nervousness, a mixed and muddled glee.

A group of people began to mass behind him, their presence suddenly impinging upon the quashed headache and repressed nausea, he began to wonder whether he should move, questioned the repercussions of such action, felt, suddenly, very watched, the figure in the middle of their green and brown eyes. He almost lost it when he felt the freezing hand upon his shoulder, the ferociously loud voice, asking if he was okay. It was the same boy, or man, what defined these things in human culture? It was all so discombobulated and wrong. The room was spinning gray, the emotions were everywhere, cacophonous and extreme, lonely, angry, bored, excited, giddy, lonely angry, lonely, lonely, lonely, stop.

It all became a dull whisper. The hand was still on his back, and it seemed to be whispering, "it's ok, just focus on me, there's a lot going on, I know, just focus on me, do a math problem, focus, it's okay, you can do this"

It all drifted away, the chaos, the people over his shoulder, except this one. They were diagramable now, their standing and sitting positions forming right triangles and parallelograms. Except for the rogue with his hand on his shoulder. He was the axis. He was a man. But even this one, who gave women muddled glee and smiled at everyone, even he had this aloneness radiating off of him, how odd, how unusual, that he had felt this from everyone in the room, pounded into him as a nail into wood, harsh, ungiving, piercing. The world returned, and so he turned to the owner of the hand who whispered still, and said,

"All humans are lonely"

Maple eyes answered back a retreating affirmative.


	3. Chapter 3

She had such a beautiful smile. Spock was enraptured by it, by the shy way her eye hid behind a bang, and as she walked into his room with an advanced nuclear sciences book, he found that he was completely lost, tired of loneliness, tired in general.

"It's so clean"

He swooped his head down in acknowledgement, moving to the table, pulling out paper, meeting her gaze expectantly.

She quirked her head slightly to the side, as if contemplating him, as Spock found himself suddenly self conscious, wanting to pull at the corners of his paper or walk away, the latter being easier to control.

"You play an instrument?"

"Yes, from Vulcan"

"I used to play the flute"

He wondered why she stopped, was raising courage from the sun beaming in the window and the equations on the cover of the book, but she quashed his plans before any attempt was made by sitting down with a sigh,

"Lets get started"

And so for two hours Spock explained the warp drive, subspace frequencies, everything required but simple for him, to this beautiful girl with a beautiful smile who was trying so hard to understand the beauty of science.

At five o clock she rose, as did his gaze when she moved to go, with a little giggle

"Gotta meet the boyfriend, he hates it when I'm late, men, you know"

He nodded his again, and once more she sized him up.

"I think you're lonely"

"I'm a Vulcan"

"Mmm, well, thanks so much, I'll see you soon, okay?"

"Indeed"

The door clicked and a few seconds later he walked to the window, which was now covered in the fleeting drops of coming rain. He would feel the damp chill later that night when he tried to sleep. He was beginning to feel like he would never sleep well again, it was always cold, always loud, and he always felt ill. But god, he had never been happier. Had never felt more incredibly dejected.

There was a knock on the door. He looked at the table, thinking she had forgot something, but nothing there was hers. He pressed the "allow" button and it was not her, it was him, the one who had that uncanny ability to appear when he needed saving. But not this time, he appeared drunk, or angry, or both. Spock raised his eyebrows, moved towards the raging, trembling form, touched the tightly coiled body, and felt it unravel in his arms, flooding him with uncontrolled grief, anger, and desolate sorrow.

"Grandfather died. You know, people die, and then you wonder, where were they, I never saw them, and you wonder how you long for their presence when you never wanted it before."

"You are not alone, it will pass"

light eyes met their darker version; a bolt of lightning illuminated the intense gaze between the two. Spock had been cold before, but this half broken form in his arms was keeping him warm, and, as it looked like he had no intention of leaving, Spock moved back against the wall, the weight in his arm turning heavier as it fell asleep, and then unconscious as Spock himself fell asleep.


End file.
